


Nar Shaddaa Pazaak (or how to get your hot crewmate in their underwear)

by PomoneCorse



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Space Strip Poker, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 12:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11013540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PomoneCorse/pseuds/PomoneCorse
Summary: Countless lessons in the crêche have drilled into younglings similar warnings of the dangers of relationships; and twenty years later the Exile tries to be distant, understanding of others but not connecting.She has failed terribly.





	Nar Shaddaa Pazaak (or how to get your hot crewmate in their underwear)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from circadian_rythm on tumblr: "Boaz and Atton playing a game of pazaak? Mira popping in to make some comment on spicing up the rules? Is strip-pazaak a thing? It is now."
> 
> Go give [her](http://archiveofourown.org/users/circadian_rythm/pseuds/circadian_rythm) some love, guys!! (and ask her about her lovely An'harad)

The Dorian passion fruit tears apart easily, chewed up nails ripping the rind in half. Blue fingers raise a piece to bruised lips, grab the corner of a semi-clean rag to wipe down any stray drop of juice. The Ebon Hawk is nearly silent, most of the crew gone off to stretch their legs, visit the cantina, look at merchants' inventories. Hrott'eboaz'baonsu is nearly alone, if not for T3's whirring in the engine room, G0-T0's soft beeps, Kreia’s constant presence in the dormitory. The quiet is deafening.  
Ten years spent alone have been a blur, yet Boaz finds no regret at being with people again. There are social conventions to respect, feelings and convictions to assess and dance around, but she has missed this, the knowledge she is not entirely alone in an uncaring galaxy. For all the barbs they deal each other ceaselessly, the crew has held together remarkably well. Kreia has warned her not to get attached. Countless lessons in the crêche have drilled into younglings similar warnings of the dangers of relationships; and twenty years later the Exile tries to be distant, understanding of others but not connecting.  
She has failed terribly. Somehow, the people that have taken to waddling behind her like so many pelikki have gotten under her skin, undoing in just a few weeks the shell she's built over a decade wandering rim worlds.  
If she allows herself to be honest within her own mind, it isn’t a great loss.

  
A sudden blip of her comm jerks her out of her thoughts. She wipes a sticky hand down her brown robe, and opens the holocomm to Mira's face, brows furrowed. There is loud cantina music in the background, louder than whatever the red-head tries to say.  
"--and it'd be worse that way."  
Boaz blinks, slowly, unsure.  
"I am sorry, I did not quite catch that. What has happened?"  
"Look, just come over? Fly-boy's gonna bet the ship to his next opponent, or whatever, if he keeps up like this."  
Boaz inhales, counts to ten in Minisiat, then backwards.  
"I will be there as soon as possible, then. Make sure he slows down on the spicebrew?"  
Mira snorts, hologram fizzing out at the edge.  
"I'll try, but no promises."

Atton insists on getting inside the ship unaided. As the three of them climb up the ramp, he waddles, lists to the side. Boaz reaches out tentatively with the Force.  
"St'p that," Atton says, hand waiving in the air as if batting away invisible gnats. "I don't need your help."  
Mira shrugs, still sipping on the red drink she's picked up on the way back. Reluctantly, Boaz backs off.  
"What is that, anyway?" she asks Mira, uncomfortable in the almost-silence of the docks. "It looks worse than what you keep in the storage room."  
"This? Want a sip?" she raises the plastiglass up, wiggling it. "Noga Boga, it's local. Or is it Boga Noga? Good, though."  
"Better that you finish it, then." she says, as they enter the main hold. "I have had some bad experiences with Huttese food."  
Mira smirks, lips and teeth stained red from the brew.  
"Your loss. But I'm gonna get you wasted someday, watch out."  
"Should you have told me, in that case? I will have to be careful."  
"Nah, I prefer it when the prey knows I'm there." A beat, and Mira's cheeks turn red. "Oh, not that I'm still after you. Or, well, that I've kept up with what happened to your bounty, but, um, look," and Boaz feels tendrils of embarrassment and nerves through the Force. It's endearing.  
"I'm just gonna go make some caf, yeah? I'll bring some in a bit." Mira exclaims, half-running away.  
Boaz turns back to the center of the room, where she finds Atton has slumped down on the dejarik table. The man's brown hair is more disheveled than usual; Boaz is tempted to hand him a comb. She settles on rummaging through the med-bay. When she finds what she's looking for, she shuts the drawer and steps back to Atton’s side. Her heavy robes take up space as she sits down.  
"You look like you just came out of a Corellian Merchant's Guild reunion."  
Atton barks out a laugh, and slumps backwards into the other chair.  
"What, I don't look like my handsome, usual self? I'm crushed, jedi."  
Boaz shrugs.  
"What can I say? Humans all look the same to me."  
"But you’ve just got blue skin... Wait. Was that a joke? You've been spending too much time with Kreia."  
She rolls her eyes, then holds up the shot for him to see.  
"And you, specifically, look like you are going to need anti-veisalgia. Please, give me your arm."  
He shrugs out of his jacket, nearly elbowing her in the process. As soon as that's done, she grabs his forearm and jabs the hypo in, holding the limb in place as he jerks it in surprise.  
"Not that I don't like you holding onto me and all, but could you not be so harsh? I kind of need my hand to pilot the ship."  
"We could always ask Bao-Dur to build you another one. Or you could start a club with Kreia, she seems like she'd enjoy the company," she laughs as Atton frowns.  
Boaz holds on a few more seconds as the hypo empties itself. When it's done, she stands to throw it away.  
"There, we will be able to travel tomorrow without you feeling like the aftermath of a bantha stampede."  
When she turns around, Atton's slipped back into his jacket, and is thumbing through a worn-down pack of cards. He looks up.  
"Wanna play?"  
"Sure. Just let me find the deck I bought on Telos."

They're just starting the tiebreaker when Mira walks back in, a tanker in one hand and piled up mugs in the other.  
"We're out of sugar." The bounty hunter passes each of them a mug. "I hope you like spiced caf, by the way."  
There's no answer as Boaz draws a card. Mira pulls an empty crate to the dejarik table and plops down on it.  
"This is boring, guys,” she sighs after ten minutes pass in silence. Boaz’s gaze flicks to her, then back to her deck. The dim light allows them to see the scarlet rim of her irises, red bleeding back into red.  
“If I am not mistaken, this is a two-players sort of game. How would you do it?”  
Mira grins like the Loth-cat that ate the Loth-rat, and slides forward, chin in her hands and elbows on the cards.  
“Say, heard of Nar Shaddaa rules?”  
“We’re not armed,” scoffs the pilot, frowning as he puts down another card.  
“Not that one, Atton. That’s the one you play in the cantina or in the streets. I’m talking about the one with friends. Or close acquaintances, if you don’t have any of those.”  
“Oh!” he exclaims, then slightly quieter.“Strip-pazaak.”  
“It sure is, fly-boy. Are you in?”  
“Why not?” Boaz says, cards down and caf in her hands. “Not much else to do now, and the others are not due for another couple of hours.”  
“That’s the spirit! Now, this is how we did it down in the vents...”

It’s always dusk on the smuggler’s moon; Brianna doesn’t know if she likes it yet. But it is different from Telos and the underground academy, flashing signs and rude sentients moving in almost-waves. She’s glad for the walk throughout the street merchants’ stalls, feeling freer in the crowd, away from her half-sisters. She’s left the Exile (a quiet...what, Pantoran with an eye condition? A malformed Duro hybrid?) butchering fruit in the main hold, the sight of jedi clothing making the half-Echani uneasy. But Bao-Dur and his remote have found her wandering the stalls before she could get overwhelmed, and he hands her a crate. The droid beeps on the way back, hovering in what she guesses is a playful manner. Droids are weird, anyway.

The Iridonian heads to the garage when they enter the Ebon Hawk, as eager a look on his face as Brianna thinks he might ever have, saying something about parts and upgrades. She doesn’t sigh, left alone with a crate full of rations, but it’s close. The cargo hold is empty. With a heave, she drops the rations with the other foodstuffs. She rummages in the already-opened one, grabs some dried Tarine tea. The multiprocessor is in the main hold, however, and she grumbles as she carries the packet out.  
She drops it when she enters the room. The three people at the dejarik table are in various states of undress, various glasses spread around them, clothes strewn across the floor. The Exile faces her as she walks in, and the smile on her face turns blinding.  
“Handmaiden! There you are!” she says, then looks somewhat cross as she stares back at the table. “I mean, Brianna! Do you wish to join us?”  
She talks very, very fast. When the smell of spiced caf hits Brianna’s nose, it becomes clear why. She glances at the players. Boaz and Atton stare pensively at their cards, Mira radiating smugness. Pilot in a brown undershirt hanging down to his thighs, jedi in the ugliest bodyglove she has ever seen, and bounty hunter still clad in leather pants paint a surprising holo-picture. The familiarity, the closeness between them strikes something bittersweet in the hollow of her chest. She misses her sisters, she realizes, even with all the shame they made her bear. At least, then, she knew where she stood, as faithful servant to the last true jedi; now she waits before the precipice of the unknown, unsure of the future of this woman, with this crew.

  
Boaz watches her once more, and Brianna realizes she hasn’t answered. She bends to pick up the tea packet, trying to think of something witty. She settles for blunt.  
“Why are you all naked?”  
“Ah, well, as you can see, we are all absolutely awful at pazaak.”  
“That… that doesn’t really answer my question.”  
Mira giggles. Brianna suspects there’s more than just caf in the mug she’s sipping from.  
“Nar Shaddaa rules,” Mira explains. “No weapons, and you take off your clothes when you lose a hand.”  
“I see,” is all that she can say in reply, carefully making her way over discarded clothes to the kitchenette.  
She hears someone sigh. When she turns, Boaz is standing up, throwing his leather jacket at Atton.  
“Time for us to go to sleep, in this case. Come on, up you go,” she says too loud, pulling Mira up by the arm. “We have places to be tomorrow.”  
“Try a few weeks, at the pace this old ship goes.”  
“Good point. All the more reason to depart as soon as possible!”  
Mira gathers mugs, Atton his clothes and dignity, and they go their separate ways, each throwing a good night over their shoulders as they leave.  
The Exile slips back into her robes, blue skin engulfed by waves of washed-out brown, bare feet and hands poking out.  
“You should join us sometimes,” she mentions as she fiddles with the nav-computer. “I believe you would have enjoyed seeing Mira embarrass Atton.”  
Brianna stays quiet for a few beats, and turns around to watch her.  
“Maybe next time.”  
A smile spreads on the woman’s face.  
“Great,” and somehow she feels better, bittersweet in her chest replaced by something warm, comfortable.

  
She still may not know what's in store, but she can see why this woman has led battles, attracts people to her. She wants to see what the future holds as she, too, follows.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up with other prompts/questions/comments on my [tumblr](http://mademoisellegush.tumblr.com/)! I've found that outside expectation is the only thing that makes me finish a work, haha


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